The attitude of Carlo Cattaneo towards positivism has ever been an intriguing problem among the historians of modern Italian philosophy. A long-standing interpretative tradition saw in him a forerunner of the positivism which flourished in Italy during the second half of nineteenth century. The Author of the present article maintains that is possible to find some analogies between Cattaneo's reflections upon history and science and the main topics of the principal exponents of positive philosophy, such as Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill, or the best Italian follower of millian methodology of history Pasquale Villari. In the same time the Author maintains that Cattaneo would never have accepted positivism as a new all-embracing philosophical system. This anti-systematic strain of Cattaneo's thought became particularly evident in his last philosophical work, Psychology of the associated minds, now accessible in a highly careful critical edition.

Sergio Bucchi, Simone Pollo and Massimo Reichlin discuss Eugenio Lecaldano's Simpatia (Sympathy). The authors present the main theses developed in the book and critically analyze them. Bucchi retraces the basis of Lecaldano's analysis in David Hume's criticism against Hobbes's "selfish system". Pollo aims at emphasizing the methodological presuppositions of the book, found in the relation between moral reflection and philosophical reconstruction. Reichlin discusses the book in detail and raises a few questions over the role of Adam Smith, naturalism, and the normative stance taken by the author.

The customary tribute to every eminent was in this case particularly significant, because the three volumes edited by Francis Darwin included, among other things, the first edition of the great naturalist’s autobiography, and an important essay by Thomas Henry Huxley on the revolutionary effect that the publication of the Origin of Species had on Victorian public opinion. Around the same time, Herbert Spencer decided to revise the material for his autobiography with a view to its publication. One of the main goals of the Spencer’s work was to claim the complete originality of his approach to evolutionary theory. The present essay aims to compare the two autobiographies, supplemented by the recollections of the main protagonists of the age, with a view to re-examining significant documents in Victorian archives of evolutionism.

’Autobiography di J.S. Mill, pubblicata postuma nel 1873, apparse a molti come un freddo esercizio intellettuale, il resoconto del severo processo di educazione cui l’autore fu sottoposto dal padre James Mill. La pubblicazione a distanza di decenni dell’early draft di quel testo ha permesso di focalizzare meglio le circostanze in cui l’opera fu concepita. Riletto alla luce delle testimonianze coeve, in particolare il carteggio con la moglie Harriet Taylor e il diario composto da Mill nei primi mesi del 1854, l’abbozzo dell’Autobiography apre nuove prospettive per inquadrare i saggi della maturita di Mill sull’etica, la religione e la societa.